Phantasm
by Rot-Chan
Summary: Konan knew she desired this closeness, shared between them like a hidden pact or bond. Like something private and reassuring to her. When Yahiko kissed her, one last time, too hard for her to breathe, it was only confirmed. ::Yahiko/Konan::
1. Part 1

**Title:** Phantasm**  
****Pairing:** _Yahiko_/Konan [before 'Pein']  
**Rating:** PG-16  
**Warnings: **a more recent 'M' rated fiction, with darker/mature content to come later.  
**Summary:** Konan knew she desired this closeness, shared between them like a hidden pact. Something reassuring to her. When Yahiko kissed her, one last time, too hard for her to breathe, it was confirmed.

**Note**: my first Yahiko/Konan fic. I usually write Pein/Konan (PeiKo) but I wanted to do something different. It's a late birthday tribute to Pein. It currently has a few parts. Please review...tell me what you think? Thanks. And BTW, you know I don't own, right?

* * *

**Phantasm**

"She wasn't in love but she would love him, if that would save her."

— Joyce Carol Oates (_Black Water_)

**_Part 1:: 13 Years Old::_**

Konan first noticed when Yahiko stared.

The origami butterfly between her fingers nearly slipped to the floor of the cave. A small fire crackled pleasantly near them; Nagato was curled up, asleep on his side. He'd been sleeping restlessly. He had been injured - a gash from slipping on a foothold while climbing a small cliffside.

Konan felt guilty. Nagato had been making faint sounds from the back of his throat and shifting, unconsciously not moving his bandaged leg, all throughout the night. But he didn't wake up. She and Yahiko had been keeping watch. They didn't feel safe, just falling asleep. Maybe it was the scare of Nagato falling that had shaken them; but they'd nearly ran into robbers not very long ago, and an unknown threat always seemed to loom over them. Yahiko was restless. And Konan was too.

As she sat folding her butterfly, she felt eyes on her. At first Konan thought it was Nagato. Then she looked over and she saw his sleeping figure lying still on the cool cave floor, his chest rising and falling slowly.

It was Yahiko.

Konan looked up from her origami, and saw Yahiko gazing at her with such an obvious intrigue etched onto his face that she felt heat prickle to her cheeks. She wasn't used to being looked at...intensely.

She fingered the hem of her shirt, looking away. It was ragged, and dirty, and wet.

And when she raised her eyes again and returned his stare, she almost felt her heart skip. Yahiko - _was it really Yahiko?_ The boy she'd known since the ragged first days of the war, the little boy with the cut on his cheek and bruise near his eye, beaten for scraps, her companion, her friend? Better than her parents, than her sister or brother?

For a brief second it seemed like it was no longer that Yahiko.

_(She felt afraid.)_

Yahiko's eyes widened when he realized he'd been caught look at her. He mumbled something incomprehensible and turned away. She saw the back of his neck was flushed and his ears were crimson. Konan picked up the butterfly again and continued to fold its wing. As if it'd never happened at all.

**_::::::_**

The early evening slowly gave way to the dead of night. Nagato was now fast asleep, completely still. Yahiko sat beside Koan, because the fire had been put out and neither of them could feign sleep.

Yahiko - he knew that Konan hated to feel alone in the dark, even at 13. It made her lonely. Lonely, she'd whispered in a reveal to Yahiko one night, while they were trying to go to sleep, in the days before she'd found Nagato, helpless. She remembered he had asked her why was she afraid to be alone?

Lonely and alone. They were two different things.

Konan sighed, eyes growing heavy, her eyelids burning from fatigue. She didn't want to say it, but she was freezing cold from the nighttime rain. It soaked the air and made her have a chill. Her hands shook, so she sat on them; Konan clamped her teeth down, willing her body not to shiver.

"Are you cold?" Yahiko asked, his voice cracking a little, echoing quietly off of the walls of the cave. It was the first time they'd talked in what felt like forever. He was usually chatty and talkative, but had been almost somber since Nagato's fall. Konan thought it was because they were delayed in their travels, but perhaps it was from something else.

Konan shook her head. "I'm not cold." She was always this way. Denying the painful things. It made Yahiko grit his teeth. Made him hate it all. Because they couldn't even be warm.

Yahiko shook his head and shoved his coat at her. She blinked in surprise. "You are _too_ cold Konan, you're...you're shaking all over the place," he said, almost angrily, and she was surprised.

Konan gently pushed the jacket back. "Why were you staring at me?" She blurted out, fidgeting, suddenly anxious and cursing herself. Really, she hadn't planned on asking him, but the words had just tumbled out on their own.

"I - I wasn't staring at you!" Yahiko replied, his eyes flashing. Konan was unsure if he could see her frown in the dark.

"You **were**," Konan insisted, feeling much too close, close enough to hear his uneven breathing. "Earlier, you were...I don't know."

"I _wasn't_," Yahiko muttered, challenging her.

"You were - just don't be a liar, Yahiko! You-" Konan insisted, because she couldn't help herself anymore; and Nagato wasn't awake anyway, and it wasn't fair he was making her so uncomfortable -

Then Yahiko was kissing her. Or at least that's what Konan thought was happening after a moment of raw shock passed, her scalp tingling, from the sensation of something soft and chapped pressed against her own lips._ Yahiko's mouth. _It wasn't instrusive, it wasn't forceful...but it was there.

And in an instant, gone - Yahiko was turned away from her, his back to her, almost out of breath. Konan flushed, feeling uncharacteristically meek, as if something had been snatched from her that she didn't even know she had.

_(What had this become?)_

**_::::::_**

They packed up and got ready to move on the next morning. Nagato's injury was slowly starting to heal. He insisted he was no longer in so much pain.

"Are you sure?" Konan asked. She helped Nagato stand up, checking the bandage on his leg. His calf was deeply bruised a blue-purplish color.

But Nagato only smiled quietly and reassuringly at her. "It's all right... I think I'm fine now." She sighed. It was hard to believe him, after he'd been too hurt to walk before.

"I'll help you carry your bags," Konan said, walking over to his things, and grabbing one of the knapsacks.

Suddenly, it was taken from her grasp. Yahiko mumbled, "I'll get it. It's fine." Konan bit the inside of her cheek, frowning. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

She thought back to what had happened the night before.

After...after it happened, Konan could hardly sleep. She was awake before, but felt even more restless afterwards. Yahiko left her in the darkness. But she didn't call for him to come back. If she had, would he have come back?

It was all so troubling. It shook her. But then, Konan's heart skipped in an almost familiar way - because the feeling she got, when it happened, it could not be called a _bad_ one. It couldn't. It would've been easier if it could have been. What had she felt?

Konan looked over as Nagato slipped on his rain jacket. Another day of traveling to their next destination awaited them. Chibi, Nagato's faithful dog, barked at birds flocking outside of the cave. Yahiko was trying to find the great Sannin, as he called them, of the leaf; apparently, they were in Ame. Yahiko had heard enough about them to know what they could do - he boasted of their abilities, claimed they would give them an "opportunity" _(hope)_. Now they just had to find them. But...

"Maybe we shouldn't go," Konan said quietly as she approached Yahiko, making sure Nagato couldn't overhear. "What if Nagato..."

Yahiko stared at the ground as if in deep concentration. Water dripped and echoed off the walls. "We have to Konan. Especially now."

Konan's eyes narrowed. Then she softened them, and sighed. "I'm not angry at you, Yahiko. About what you did."

He whipped his head up, staring at her in surprise. Yahiko seemed to be caught off-guard by his own actions, breaking their gaze almost at once, clenching his jaw.

"I... "

She touched his hand. It was a tentative gesture, and Konan didn't know what it meant, exactly, but only that it felt right.

"It's OK. You don't _have_ to explain," she said, smiling a little, because that felt right as well. She could no longer worry about how Yahiko - or Nagato - had changed, without her knowing, or becoming someone strange to her; a stranger that she did not know. She could not worry about those things. She couldn't let herself.

And it seemed it would not be that way, ever - because Yahiko smiled at her just barely, through his embarrassment, and Konan was sure.

"Come on," Yahiko said, pulling away, almost triumphant; once more that defiant and confident leader, the one who could lead them to do anything, powerful - and walked over to Nagato, gathering their bags.

Konan quickly slipped on her rain jacket, throwing her pack over her shoulder, catching up with the boys as they walked out into the veil of misty rain.

* * *

_**End of Part 1. Part 2 is coming...it's nearly complete. [[**__**Reviews = L O V E.]]**_


	2. Part 2

**Title:** Phantasm**  
****Pairing:** _Yahiko_/Konan [before 'Pein']  
**Rating:** PG-16  
**Warnings: **a more recent 'M' rated fiction, with darker/mature content to come later.  
**Summary:** Konan knew she desired this closeness, shared between them like a hidden pact. Something reassuring to her. When Yahiko kissed her, one last time, too hard for her to breathe, it was confirmed.

**Note**: I can't believe the in-canon Yahiko/Konan scenes in chapter 511. *dies of happiness*. Thank you Kishimoto for supporting Yahiko/Konan. I always knew he committed suicide because he loved her. Thanks for reading. Review please? And BTW, you know I don't own, right?

* * *

**Phantasm**

"Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat."

- Joyce Carol Oates

**_Part 2:: 13 to 16 Years Old::_**

The Sannin. Tsunade, the strong, unyielding woman known for her great strength. Her comapnion, whom they did not trust - "Orochimaru" - with corpse like skin and dead eyes. And Jiraiya, the most powerful, the balance between them, who listened.

They came across them at last.

And they reached an almost fantastic salvation. A hallucination of hope.

The ramshackle house they stayed in on the outskirts of the village was small, but nice. A small stove was in the corner near an ice chest. A kotetsu was near the kitchen, a few chairs in the living room near a sofa. The fireplace in the corner was tiny, but amazingly it threw off heat and chased out the rain's chill. The window panes in the kitchen were cracked, but clean.

"Here's your beds," Jiraiya said, pointing to the sleeping bags on the tatami mats. "Sorry we don't have better accommodations." He didn't know about where they'd previously stayed. Not "lived". Stayed.

But this was **living**. Konan, as she took in the first place close to 'Home' in so long, in what felt like an infinite space of time, felt her chest grow impossibly heavy with a sort of sadness but also with gratitude.

She was unable to fathom why this stranger, a great shinobi no less, would be offering to take care of them. Konan was unsure of what his reasons were, why he wanted to help them. But soon, it became clear to her: it was Nagato. Jiraiya-sensei wanted to train Nagato.

"Why?" Nagato asked Konan one of the first nights. It was after Yahiko had been attacked, by a rogue ninja looking to kill them for food and supplies. Nagato had, somehow, killed the rogue, and saved Yahiko's life in the process.

Yahiko's brush with death did not shake his resolve to continue to live, to hold onto that almost childish dream Konan could never forget hearing him speak - _**"I want to rule this world." **_But he was silent that night, bandaged and bruised.

"Because. Nagato is special," Konan whispered back, as she listened to the steady, gravely breaths of their teacher on the far side of the room. In and out, again and again, like peaceful white noise.

_::::::_

Ninjutsu - Yahiko had talked about this before. It was what Jiraiya-sensei and his companions knew, what the rogue who'd tried to kill Yahiko knew. It was what Konan did not know well and it frustrated her.

"I want to teach you ninjutsu," Jiraiya-sensei announced after the attack. "I feel you three have natural talent we need to hone. It certainly isn't too late."

Konan looked up from her bento in surprise. She was, to her embarrassment, trying not to wolf this food down. It was delicious. Eel over rice. It was simple - but she had not had this in so long, it was like a delicacy.

"Really?" Yahiko asked, excitedly jumping up from his seat at their table, chopsticks clattering. His eyes shone with a sort of childish wonder, but a sort of maturity as well - a deep desire to learn. To be powerful.

"Yep!" Jiraiya laughed, ruffling Yahiko's hair. Nagato was silent. He'd been upset since...what had happened, a few nights ago. But now he looked up at their teacher, and Konan touched his arm, trying to assure him:_ it will be all right. _You will learn. You'll get strong.

_::::::_

Out on their makeshift training field, Konan and Yahiko would practice.

Jiraiya-sensei would be helping Nagato. He had "different abilities" than they did, besides regular ninjutsu. Konan shivered when she thought about it. She'd seen what sensei called Nagato's _Rinneagan,_ and she sensed something was deadly and mysterious about the many rings that encircled his eyes.

"Why do you think Nagato and Jiraiya went off?" Yahiko asked casually, as he sorted through the various weapons they'd acquired for training.

Konan picked up a kunai and tucked it in her weapons pouch. She felt almost like an experienced shinobi wearing such equipment, that their sensei had given them. But she still needed to focus less on her jutsu - which involved her talent for paper folding - and more on her chakra control as well as using weapons.

"I don't know," she said quietly, not wishing to discuss it: Nagato's special power. Powerful enough to kill a rogue. It was still an enigma to her. To them both.

Yahiko shrugged. He gathered his tools and stood. They faced each other standing there, the rain a thin veil between them that dampened their clothes, and Konan did her best to bite back a grin. It was still Yahiko, and she was still Konan, but she felt as if now they were living two others' lives, or playing actors parts.

"Quit smiling!" Yahiko demanded, but he sounded playful enough and grinned a bit himself.

"Quit stalling!" Konan said back, and ran forward to make the first move.

For nearly an hour they sparred, throwing shuriken and kunai, dodging some, fending off each others' jutsu and attacks.

But Konan could feel her strength quickly beginning to dwindle. She'd made the error of using too much chakra to try to attack Yahiko with her paper clone. Their jutsu was getting better after months of practice, but their technique - it was still rough around the edges.

"Come on, Konan!' Yahiko taunted, running towards her, coming in close for combat. He threw a swift punch, which Konan easily dodged -

But then, Yahiko kicked her feet out from beneath her, and Konan was suddenly on the ground in an instant, fallen from an attack too swift to avoid, pinned down.

Yahiko grinned. Konan breathed deeply, chest rising and falling wildly. She was completely out of breath. Yahiko was getting better - and faster now, too.

She sighed, trying to catch her breath. "It's not fair. I'm tired."

Yahiko teased, "Tired _already_?"

Konan rolled her eyes at him, laughing easily. "We're not all so energetic, like you, Yahiko."

Her breathing began to slow and suddenly, Konan was aware that she was still pinned down from their spar. Her stomach flipped, and her heart beat funnily in response. She pursed her lips at Yahiko, who was no longer really grinning, starting to say, "Um, Ya -"

"Remember when you said before - that you weren't mad at me for...?" Yahiko breathed quietly though loud enough to hear, still worn from fighting.

Konan felt her eyes widen. She caught herself and tried to remain calm, tried to keep heat from rising to her cheeks. She remembered. It was...it wasn't _too_ long ago. Now it felt like it happened just last night. That strange incident in the cave, how he'd -

"I remember," she echoed her thoughts aloud against her better judgement, a tangle of nerves settling in her chest, Konan's stomach dancing with butterflies. Of nervousness. Of anticipation.

"Yeah?" Yahiko asked quietly. Konan did not mind this closeness, because she could see straight into Yahiko's eyes, and it gave her a kind of calm to see that it was still Yahiko, the leader/protector/fighter, talking, the boy who always had hope. A pillar of strength.

"You really **_weren't_** mad?" Yahiko said, and Konan realized she'd never heard him speak so evenly.

"No," she found herself say slowly, focusing on the flecks of yellow-green in his eyes. It was almost like this wasn't even real.

"Do you want to..." Yahiko trailed off, swallowing and closing his eyes briefly before opening them again. He no longer held her wrists, his palms now pressing into the muddy ground as he crouched over her.

It meant: _you can go. _

Konan felt stuck to the damp, rain-soaked earth as if she couldn't fight against him. She didn't want to. Why didn't she?

"I..." Konan muttered, looking up for a moment into the drizzling sky; the dark and ugly clouds, looming over this dark and ominous village. Something in her chest ached and felt hollow when she thought about this.

"Ok," Yahiko said, maybe for assurance, or for no reason at all, and leaned down to kiss her for the second time.

Konan felt lights exploded behind her eyes almost violently; like electric sparks were crackling beneath her lids. She shut her eyes because she knew he would close his. When his lips made contact with hers, Konan breathed in sharply, chest rising and her lungs still.

Then she breathed out again, into Yahiko's kiss. It wasn't forceful, which seemed almost ironic. Konan shakily wrapped her hands around his neck and brought him closer to her. She flinched when she felt a coarse hand touch the side of her face _(and it was all so unlike him)_ but he was bringing her impossibly closer this way, closer to him still.

Konan could feel the heat radiating off of Yahiko's body, and remembered in this haze that he was always so warm, the nights they'd slept close in the cave in the rainy winters, when she'd thought she'd die from cold.

Yahiko kissed her over and over again, at first slowly and awkwardly; then with more pressure, because Konan could not push him away _(but did she really want to?)_

Konan knew she let him only because she desired this contact, this closeness, shared between them. Like a hidden pact, or bond. Like a secret only they knew. Something _protected_. Something private, and reassuring to her. When Yahiko kissed her, one last time, long and hard, too hard for her to breathe, that confirmed it.

_::::::_

They were 16 when Jiraiya-sensei knew that it was time for him to depart. Jiraiya stood watching them. The frog cards on the wall were all flipped over, except for his. "I have to leave, so you three can start your journey elsewhere. As capable shinobi."

Konan watched as Yahiko tried not to cry, and Nagato stared on suddenly appearing almost strong, presenting an air of confidence that Konan did not know he had.

The day of their teacher's departure, Konan overheard what he said before he left.

"Don't forget what I told you, Nagato," Jiraiya said; and Nagato nodded, almost grave.


	3. Part 3

**Title:** Phantasm**  
****Pairing:** _Yahiko_/Konan [before 'Pein']  
**Rating:** PG-16  
**Warnings: **a more recent 'M' rated fiction, with darker/mature content to come later.  
**Summary:** Konan knew she desired this closeness, shared between them like a hidden pact. Something reassuring to her. When Yahiko kissed her, one last time, too hard for her to breathe, it was confirmed.

**Note**: I promise I'll write a scene similar to one in 511. I had to write a chapter about their idea of the original Akatsuki first. Don't worry - chapter 4 will have many more developments concerning romance, and the possible romantic triangle hinted here. Reviews are lovely - thanks for the 5 so far! And BTW, you know I don't own, right?

* * *

**Phantasm**

"Our house is made of glass...and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves."

- Joyce Carol Oates

**_Part 3:: 16 1/2 Years Old::_**

For some reason Konan couldn't forget the day they met each other.

It was snowing. Snow in the village never carried a happy air, of Christmas or peaceful things. Only a deep, chilling cold that wracked you to the bone. The white that fell from dark clouds in the sky - they were always dark - only created sludge and a slush that sank into their shoes and numbed their feet.

The window at the rear of the house - its panes shattered, glass littering the sill - twinkled in a rare sliver of light.

Her heart was beating so quickly, so fast! Konan thought she had two hearts, and that they would burst from her chest. Because she had been living alone for two months now, or was it three? Since she'd found her mother, at last, had succumbed to the bitter holds of illness. The last one left.

Konan slowly unlocked the door, terribly afraid -

But what she saw when she entered was unexpected: only a boy, with a bag, and a cut on his face, eating some food.

She'd given him a blanket, because she saw him shivering, and something else to eat besides the bread he'd stolen, though she couldn't remember what it was. The bread was old and stale, flavorless. She had porridge and jelly that her mother had preserved in jars. It was quickly dwindling; it scared her. No food meant starvation. Starvation meant -

"Listen - I'm sorry, but I was starving, and...and I sure wasn't gonna beg."

This sudden outburst from the boy without a name made Konan jump from her grim reverie. The winter cold gave her a sudden chill. She hugged her coat closer to her body. The house had an awful draft. They'd shoved old sheets beneath the doors but it had hardly helped.

"Oh...Well...if you'd needed food I would have given it to you," Konan murmured quietly, shyly. The boy with the orange hair, whose cheek she'd bandaged up, was wolfing down the cold porridge. One of her last remaining jars.

Why hadn't she gotten rid of him?

To this day she wondered.

Perhaps it was because she'd looked at him, truly looked at him. Not with pity or sympathy for someone poor; because after her mother...after everything happened, Konan knew she would become destitute herself. She knew it was inevitable that she too, a girl of only eleven years old, would be reduced to begging.

She saw that they shared aloneness.

When she looked at the boy - Yahiko, he eventually told her - Konan recognized that aloneness flashing in his eyes briefly, when she asked him about his name. The pain and hollowness of being alone - the way it carves itself into you.

"It was my dad's name, too," he'd said. "He's dead though."

"My mother died." Konan said this to him simply. "I have no one either." Yahiko looked at her with eyes that flashed, sharply, with a sort of sympathy. A common hurt.

_(We're alone.) _

_::::::_

"It's snowing out," Yahiko drawled, staring out the tiny window in the kitchen. He still spoke with a sort of air of excitement, but it was more subtle now. Harder to find.

Yahiko was sharpening a kunai knife. _Scritch. Scritch._ The constant sound of the blade against the grit filled the silence in the room. Nagato sat beside them, flipping through books, his face etched with concentration. He picked another one up from the pile on the table.**_ War Tactics. _**

_Scritch. Scritch. _

Konan stared through the panes of smudged, fogged glass. It was snowing too hard - a snowstorm was coming. The smell of the miso in her bowl...it was making her so sick.

"I...don't feel well," she whispered, because she suddenly felt unable to speak. And she felt her head spin, dizzy. Her arms shook as she pressed her palms against the table, trying to stand up.

"Konan? Ko-"

_::::::_

Dreams, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant, always carry a message. A symbol to interpret for the conscious mind.

Through someone else's eyes, because they could not be her own, Konan saw Yahiko in the rain. Walking across an empty wasteland. The clouds loomed above, seeming ominous and too large. And suddenly he stepped into a puddle and she wanted to scream because she knew what was going to happen, she knew -

He disappeared. Sucked into an oasis beneath them, that led to nowhere.

_::::::_

"Konan?"

Konan's eyes felt heavy, impossibly heavy, burning heavy.

Her hands were weak. Limp at her sides, though she tried to lift them to reach out, to make sure she was not standing in that vast empty space, searching for him. "Yahiko?" Her voice sounded foreign to her - thick and far away.

"It's Nagato," came a soft reply. Konan felt her heart sink. She was somehow still asleep, still dreaming, crafting this evil nightmare in her mind -

"You fainted," Nagato told her. And suddenly her brain pieced everything together. Fainted. No longer asleep. _Fainted..._It had felt like an endless sleep.

"Oh," Konan muttered. Still sick to her head. A strange pang in her chest. Because it had felt so real.

_::::::_

Yahiko went to Konan later, when evening came and the fire place crackled close to her bed to keep her warm, feeling like she needed someone there, if only for their presence.

When Konan felt another presence, she awoke. She'd slept restlessly. Nagato told Yahiko she'd lost consciousness just from over exerting herself earlier that day...and she had been training particularly hard.

And it was so cold, Yahiko noted. The cold always made Konan feel weak.

When had she told him that?

"I had a dream," Konan spoke dully. Her voice, soft and faint, almost gave him chills.

"What was it about?" Yahiko asked her quietly, his head pounding unusually, a strange fatigue weighing heavily on him. He didn't mean to wake her up.

"You fell. You disappeared," Konan said. She opened her eyes. The light cast through the windows, from the harsh brightness of pure white snow, made her eyes seem to glow softly. Almost ethereal. "I'm sorry."

Yahiko touched her face with the back of his hand, cautiously. When Konan said these things sometimes, these sad kind of things...it was the reminder that _always_, always the sadness lingered like a disease in this house. In her.

"Why are you saying sorry? You didn't do anything," he told her, an edge to his voice. "Just go back to sleep. You're tired." Yahiko got up from where he sat on his knees.

She grabbed his arm. Her hand was felt like frost. His eyes met hers, briefly, before flickering over to the fireplace. Yahiko felt unnerved knowing Nagato could see. And it scared him to realize he felt this way _- why? _

"Don't leave, OK?" Konan said, and her voice was stronger now. So Yahiko sat down again for he felt like he **couldn't** go. She turned to the window and watched the blizzard outside.

"It's peaceful," Konan whispered, and Yahiko's eyes lingered on her face when she uttered that word. _Peaceful._ It sounded impossibly angelic. Like it couldn't exist.

In the next room Nagato watched them, silent.

He turned, his eyes - the eyes he knew they both respected, feared - feeling hot, as he looked out of the window by the door at the thousands of white flakes falling to the ground. A simple phenomenon.

_::::::_

Soon the snow no longer fell so thickly. Yet the sky was still dark black, a perpetual night.

When Konan was well again, Yahiko called a meeting. In the dimness of the evening he stood before them, almost authoritative. When he said something you couldn't help but listen intently. He looked the part of a leader now: taller, broader. Stronger. Though he still carried that old hope, that sort of invincibility in him, as he always would. It would never fade.

But things had changed. The air in this tiny house - this _shack_, almost falling apart - it had grown more somber, more silent. More serious. Like death. They all knew it, but did not try to change it.

Why weren't they more alive?

"We need to do something. It's time to declare war," Yahiko said. He stared, eyes hard, at the floorboards.

Nagato looked at Yahiko in subtle shock. "Why now? Why so suddenly?"

Konan stared at them both, these two boys - no, they were men now, men who were complex and difficult to understand, no longer lost in the fake opportunities and wonders of childhood. And what had she become to them?

"Because we're strong enough now, Nagato. You know it. I know it." Yahiko trailed off for a moment before he at last looked up, truth evident in his voice.

"We're strong enough to stand up to Hanzo."

Nagato frowned; he opened his mouth to speak but Konan interrupted.

"Yahiko is right," she said gently, putting a hand on Nagato's forearm. "We need to confirm our own existence. We can no longer stay in the background. Not when Hanzo - not when he makes everyone here live in fear." Konan felt her heart turn. She knew Yahiko said was correct... but she could not envision herself or either of them fighting him.

But the sickness, the crime, the war and the hatred, the death. It was because of this leader, not truly fit to be a leader, just a being with a cruel and twisted mind who had too much power.

Konan stared at Yahiko as he spoke with Nagato about an idea he had for so long. Only a word. But soon, a reality.** 'Akatsuki'.**

But Nagato did not want to start a conflict with Hanzo. He was worried of what would become of them, even if they did acquire a small army as Yahiko boasted they would. What would happen if they failed? Yahiko growled when Nagato said this, and only told them: "It's entirely _Hanzo's _fault all this is happening, and you wanna just let him keep getting away with it?"

_(Is there truly ever one person to blame for war?)_

Later that evening, Nagato was gone.

Konan stared wordlessly as she gazed out far into the snow; everything seemed to blend together as one, one gigantic white ocean. The silence made her ears ring.

She turned away from the window. "Will Nagato return?"

Yahiko put a hand on her arm. His eyes were serious. "Don't think about Nagato. He's...he's strong enough to survive on his own." There was nothing reassuring in Yahiko's tone - was it bitterness? Konan instantly pushed the thought from her mind. She was imagining this. They were still comrades who could cooperate at least. It had been Nagato's choice to leave this house.

So she cupped his face with her hand. "Don't be foolish with this," Konan murmured. "Akatsuki."

Yahiko leaned down, unexpectedly, to kiss her. Konan found herself suddenly caught up in this familiar embrace when Yahiko gripped her shoulders and brought her closer to him. Her hand tangled in his hair; his tongue against her lips. It was a rush of heat, of emotion, raw and simple. Then, they broke apart.

"I won't fail. Just believe me, all right?" Yahiko whispered. Konan gently kissed the hollow of his throat. A silent reply of understanding.

In the early hours of morning, without asking where he had gone or why, Konan welcomed Nagato in through the door, her arms offering him warmth as he shook with cold. Yahiko watched on in the heavy silence, before Nagato approached him and only said: **_I agree. _**


	4. Part 4

**Title:** Phantasm**  
****Pairing:** _Yahiko_/Konan [before 'Pein']  
**Rating:** PG-16  
**Warnings: 'M' rated chapter [sexual content, though not too explicit.]**  
**Summary:** Konan knew she desired this closeness, shared between them like a hidden pact. Something reassuring to her. When Yahiko kissed her, one last time, too hard for her to breathe, it was confirmed.

**Note**: I know I promised a scene like 511. Don't worry, I plan to add it in part 5 - coming shortly - because it just didn't fit into 4. It's perfect for a flashback in part 5. This part finally made the story darker and more mature. Thanks for 8 great reviews. Please keep reviewing, they're wonderful to read! And BTW, you know I don't own, right?

* * *

**Phantasm**

"Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive."

— Joyce Carol Oates

**_Part 4:: 17 Years Old::_**

The apartment they shared was in the high tower deep within the bowels of the rainy city.

It looked out high above the gritty streets littered with rusted shuriken and dull kunai knives; and cigarette butts, Konan noted, and old discarded papers, lost dolls and toys. Human things. She traced the window's ledge, cold and concrete. Konan's chest ached, with that familiar lonely pang she would have on only these nights, since they'd returned to this place.

"We're going to the next sector. We're recruiting more for those we've lost."

It was Nagato's voice. Authoritative too, now.

**Akatsuki**, no longer just a faint and enigmatic dream. _Akatsuki_, now so palpable, so whole, almost tangible to them. The key to their salvation with five units of soliders, now. Tools ready to be used upon command. Heartless tools, simple sacrifices, and Konan could not look them in the eye_ (knowing they'll all be dead, so soon...)_

She nearly jumped when Yahiko placed a firm hand upon her shoulder. Somehow it was a foreign touch, a touch too careless, unlike him. Thinking about this - recounting briefly the gentle touches that Yahiko gave, those strange yet soothing touches to the side of her cheek, her bare forearm and back - it made Konan feel uncomfortably warm.

"We're going now. You don't have to go if you want to stay."

"I'll come with you." Konan turned to face him, away from those lights dotting the darkening cityscape. From the ground many feet below them, Konan heard the faint cry of laughter; the sharp pierce of a child's laugh in the cool, calm evening.

Konan saw it on Yahiko's face as she slipped on the Akatsuki cloak, a simple black cloak that hung heavily around her shoulders: the growing kindling's of triumph and hope, of strength, before the large battle is fought only to be won.

With all the others Konan jumped out that open window, their sandals slapping against the cool concrete as they leaped through the vast wasteland, the rainy wetting her clothes and giving a clean smell, like damp earth.

Yahiko and Nagato led the Akatsuki, the many men loyal to the very idea of defeating the looming shadow that controlled them for what felt like eternity, following behind them. She fell into step beside the leaders, easily keeping up.

Nagato smiled briefly at her - but it instantly flickered from his face, like a candle blown out, as they approached the inner-city.

A battle to be won.

_(Or perhaps lost.)_

_::::::_

Konan gazed out upon the hundreds of twinkling lights all around them; cheap paper lanterns strung across forgotten clothes lines outside of windows, tiny lamps glowing in windows, window after window faintly illuminated, like tiny stars. Konan briefly closed her eyes, marveling at the white and silver lights exploding behind them, temporarily. What did this remind her of?

Blood streaking the pavements like tears, diluted from rain.

Yahiko refused to speak. He clenched his fist, pounding the wall, almost hard enough for it to cave in, to break. Only she could calm him, that Konan knew; she inhaled deeply, the air suddenly feeling too stagnant to breathe. Yet she could not move away from this spot, watching 'their' city.

Another dozen dead, bodies of the butchered comrades, the loyal men.

It was the late evening: the evening of the Ame festival, Konan remembered from her childhood, as she shed the Akatsuki cloak, letting it fall to the floor and pool around her feet.

It was the late evening yet the city continued to glow dully with light. Nagato sat out on the watch post, the low breezes giving him a chill as the damp cloak clung to him like a second skin. Wishing to feel closer yet farther away from there, from the present. From the 'Now'.

In the distance, with the sounds of the people of the city, someone beat a drum.

_::::::_

Nagato often could not sleep. He had become an insomniac and would often stay up late into the night, gazing out of the window at the rain or reading something to occupy his time. Once, out of curiosity Konan picked up one of the books Nagato would read, and found it to be a complicated historical collection of myths, prophecies. Gods and Goddess of war.

It was strange, how different their lives had become.

Konan went into the bathroom and quietly shut the door. Inside, Konan could no longer hear the rain.

She parted her hair gently with the jade colored teeth of her comb. Gathering the thickest part, Konan wrapped it into a bun; then she raised her right hand and crafted another rose, borne from her fingertips. Konan placed it in her hair. Each day the rose was subtly different. None of her origami was identical.

She looked upon herself with a sort of curiosity in the cracked bathroom mirror, and wondered about why Yahiko and Nagato loved her, and **how** they loved her.

Konan knew the nights when she'd sit beside Nagato in the living room as they were bathed in the glow of the television that he loved her. He wanted to protect her. Konan remembered the many times Nagato had told her this: "I just want to protect you. You and Yahiko both." And Konan felt protected. So she knew he loved her, wanted her to be infinite, immortal; loved her like an angel only to be admired from afar, because that way she could never get hurt. (_But what about you, Nagato?)_

As she applied rouge to her lips, Konan almost shivered as she thought about Yahiko; about the tension, the way he still looked at her and the many times they'd come too close, shared that secret contact, a contact that felt almost wrong because Nagato didn't know _(did he know?)_ But maybe Nagato did know how Yahiko loved her, because Yahiko would brush his hand against Konan's hand, would sit beside her at the long table in the kitchen, would speak first only to her after missions, would always gaze at her so intensely.

_Yahiko:_ passion, fiery rage, and a crackling energy that never seemed to fizzle out. But they were 17 now, and they grew older only to see and know more malevolence. And it had changed him.

But it hasn't changed the emotion in his heart. No. Konan took out her eyeshadow, a deep blue that darkened her eyes even in the light. She knew that would always remain unaltered.

She would find herself lonely watching the rain slide down the windowpanes in the dark. When she knew Nagato was asleep Konan would walk into Yahiko's room, those few short steps; would slowly slip into his bed feeling as breakable as glass. Yahiko would then take her into his hold, give her that impossible heat he always carried with him like the sun. And it told her everything. That he had a different love for her, than Nagato did.

Konan stared at her reflection again - the shadowed eyes, the red chapped lips, pallid skin and a flower in her hair. She thought about when Yahiko would come to her in the dark some nights when she'd be already asleep, would slip in beside her still warm and whisper in her ear - what did he say? She couldn't remember. She only remembered wrapping her arms around those sharp shoulders and broad back, only to fall back to sleep again.

She clicked the shadow case shut, capped the lipstick, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly feeling irrationally shy for no reason at all. Yes. It was a different love, she knew.

_::::::_

Konan could recall, faintly, if she tried, a time when Yahiko had yelled at Nagato_ to stop being a crybaby!_ to get over the death of his parents, to become a man. How Nagato had been so afraid. He'd been terrified, perhaps because it was true: but because Yahiko was, in the passions of anger, fearsome.

The old clock on the mantle struck twelve.

Where had Nagato disappeared to?

As her hands clenched at her side, there it was, clear, like fresh sea glass, that image of his thirteen-year-old self screaming at Nagato. Was he the same child, the same boy? He seemed young again, yet too old, now - as if he'd aged beyond his years inside himself.

"Yahiko," Konan uttered almost sternly, but she tried not to shake, because he was yelling to _himself_, and it was all so chaotic -

"Nagato - he doesn't understand! Akatsuki can change the world. And, and he's the key,**_ he's the bridge to our peace. _**All the no good bastards ruining this whole city and - they should all be dead._ Hanzo has to die and **we** have to do it!"_ Yahiko stormed around the room, pacing wildly, pulling at his hair, in fury, in frustration.

A group of Akatsuki - new recruits, Konan remembered Nagato telling her when she'd greeted them - had tried to infiltrate one of Hanzo's headquarters. Their bodies were found on nearby streets, slaughtered, disgustingly dismembered; those who'd somehow escaped alive were lying there slowly dying, the rainwater tinged pink from seeping blood.

Konan had not seen him like this for so long, too long, and - it was all out of her control.

"Please, Yahiko," Konan broke, begging him to stop - because now Nagato had gone off somewhere in his own anger and they would be broken beyond repair, for the sake of this dream, an impossible wish to change something that could never be changed.

"Konan. You - you can't just give up on me," Yahiko turned to face her, demanding this of her. Konan stepped back and she cursed herself because she felt her eyes grow hot, and why did her own anger only breed a tidal wave of sadness inside of her she couldn't stop from showing?

"Please, Yahiko," she repeated. _"You must calm down."_ She raised a hand to stop him and the paper butterflies swirled like hornets around them both; a frenzied cocoon entrapping them in a briefly private world.

In a flash, they were shred to pieces, by the kunai in Yahiko's hands.

He threw it to the ground; it clattered loudly, echoing of the dingy kitchen walls. Konan's eyes narrowed as he stepped closer, her chest heavy with anger, sorrow, an impossible weight - and what else, what was it?

Yahiko dragged Konan closer to him, shortening the distance, his hold nearly bruising her wrist -

and he smashed his mouth to hers, feral, unyielding -

_- this is the love Nagato won't give, can't give, he cannot see this._

Konan knew she shouldn't be feeling anything. But she wanted this messy and destructive love, the love she had been harboring inside like a child's secret, innocent yet somehow forbidden to reveal...because it was all they had, and it held them together, now.

She took off his clothing, impatiently undoing the straps and buckles on his cloak, as they continued to kiss, mouths parting and pressing together in an almost hurried whirlwind. Yahiko shrugged out of it, throwing it on the floor as Konan threw off her blouse - and no sooner had she discarded her shirt that Yahiko was pressing her against the wall, knee between her legs, pressing against her with just enough pressure, and her stomach flipped as a strange kind of pleasure rang out under her skin, in her chest.

"Don't - give up," Yahiko said, in between kisses.

Konan murmured back, biting his lower lip, "I won't." Because she knew she never truly could.

Konan felt him pull down her skirt and underwear. It pooled to the floor around her ankles. The sudden rush of cool air to her bare skin made her shiver, and she felt too exposed, to eyes that weren't even there.

Only Yahiko's eyes, darkened, as he breathed heavily and unclasped her bra, clumsily undoing the straps, as Konan removed it, throwing it on the floor, immediately pressing herself against him, urgent - and Yahiko pressed his fingertips against her, rough and slow; Konan moaned quietly, unable to stop herself as he touched her, raw, somehow uncaring, somehow making her skin prickle with pleasure.

They kissed fervently, both out of breath, her calloused hands - they weren't like a girl's hands should be, too rough and coarse but still small - roaming around Yahiko's back, touching the raised skin where kunai and shuriken had pierced his flesh, making scars.

"Konan," he murmured, kissing her jawline, "don't leave."

The words struck her somewhere in her heart, and she nearly broke.

Konan's mouth opened to make a sound, but she lost her voice when Yahiko suddenly thrust into her. He roughly held her hips, lifting a leg as she wrapped the other around his waist. Konan winced as her head hit the hard tiling of the kitchen wall. She held on to him, nails grazing his skin.

She shuddered, unable to fathom this sort of intrusion, an overwhelming feeling, as she grabbed onto his back and pushed her face against the crook of his neck, onto his shoulder, with each thrust.

It was chaotic yet slow and unhurried, each movement echoing within her; powerful but fragile, unbearable but needed, only bringing her closer to him. Konan could not bite back a hiss as he cupped her breasts. Like a beautiful curse. Tragic. Lovely.


	5. Part 5

**Title:** Phantasm**  
****Pairing:** _Yahiko_/Konan [before 'Pein']  
**Rating:** PG-16  
**Warnings: **None ['M' rated material next chapter]  
**Summary:** Konan knew she desired this closeness, shared between them like a hidden pact. Something reassuring to her. When Yahiko kissed her, one last time, too hard for her to breathe, it was confirmed.

**Note**: Unfortunately the 511 scene didn't fit in with this storyline _right now. _I apologize - but when I write Yahiko's part it can be included. Just be patient. I've already planned it out. Now it's Nagato's part. I feel Konan is a good narrator but I needed change. I'm aware my story of the Ame Orphans isn't exactly like the manga in the end. But that's all right; it's better that way. Thanks for all the support; the reviews are lovely. Please continue to review. BTW, you know I don't own right?

* * *

**Phantasm**

"How frail the human heart must be - a mirrored pool of thought."

— Sylvia Plath

**_Part 5:: 18 Years Old::_**

As Nagato walked through the city, in between ominous towering buildings, through the industrial districts, alleys and rain soaked streets, he felt nothing. He'd taken to scaling the city alone. Whenever he felt restless, whenever Nagato felt an overwhelming ache in his chest, his throat, he had to leave them. Whenever they received reports that more members of Akatsuki had fallen, Nagato would find himself wandering. How many days, weeks, months had he done this? _(He had to be a coward.)_

It wasn't calm; nor was it peace. A void had come to settle in his chest, weighing heavily; a star, collapsing, sucking in all emotion with the loss of light.

And perhaps he welcomed it.

Walking by the gang-circle of men, smashing in the window, glowering at his presence - turning away in fear, rushing into the house, the forbidden entrance, when Nagato gazed sullenly with one visible eye.

A dangerous iris, a ring, circling, circling; never-ending. Eternal.

"Eternal", Nagato whispered to himself, almost mesmerized by the tinkling sounds of glass, their blatant acts of intrusion. Slowly walking away, slowly moving on, knowing he himself was a dangerous presence...and perhaps that was how it should be, unceasing.

The rain was heavy, too heavy. It soaked Nagato through his cloak, his undershirt, his clothing. He had lost track of where he was going, disregarding direction, forgetting the faces he had passed, forgetting everything. He had disregarded time.

The Akatsuki robe hung on his shoulders, too cruelly like the intangible weight he carried there, too much to bear.

Shrugging it off, it was soaked beyond black, beyond the total loss of light; now just a simple garment in Nagato's hands, it was now of little importance; it did not make him important, it was nothing. He was nothing.

So tempted to throw the cloak off into the trash. The alleyway was nearly too black to see, but Nagato could always see, a curse/blessing/curse. He carried it as he ventured on the way back 'home'- not truly their _home_. Only a small and pitiable place to stay, a meeting place. Nothing more, nothing less; it only had the fragments of necessary emotion from the two others, the remainder of his childhood, his old life. Yahiko. Konan.

Nagato grimaced and walked straight ahead, past the children lying near the roads, past the tin rooftops rattling from rain, past the looming buildings, huge and plain and the color of indifference.

She was there, almost like a phantom - almost real, a hologram, beside him, tugging on his shirtsleeve - _Nagato, hurry, come with me come on come on! -_ a constant echo, a reprise in his ears. Young and innocent and Konan's eyes wear clear, untouched by an impossible haze that had overtaken them now, the obscurity of true loss.

Picturing Konan's face made his chest ache - the emptiness confirmed, and it hurt to realize it was her face that did it to him, that reminded Nagato of all that had gone wrong, of all that was now missing, as if it had never been there at all. Nagato knew he was making Konan hurt too, in his own childish rejection and loneliness, though he did not want to be alone; but as he walked he knew it was evident. _(Nagato hurt.)_

_::::::_

When Nagato walked through the entryway, his entrance unexpected for he had been gone for far too long. Yet Konan did not rush into his arms, did not go to him and ask him _Where were you?_

Instead she stood up abruptly; her hair somewhat out of place, her face pallid but her cheekbones streaked with a subtle flush. But it was Konan's eyes that disturbed Nagato most, that look so similar to his own. One of being confused, of being lost.

It was profound, Nagato thought numbly, as the rain from the downpour dripped off of his clothing to the floor, and Yahiko watched in the silence as a single kitchen bulb, naked and harsh hanging down with its dull and unforgiving glow, gave them an eerie light. It was profound how they were all so still.

Standing still, as if in a dream.

Nagato, unable to move, until Konan grabbed his arm and dragged him to the washroom, cracked sink and a broken mirror, a dingy porcelain tub stained gray. Quietly shutting the door, and Yahiko didn't come after them.

Allowing herself to silently cry as she rubbed the dampness from his fiery hair with an old bath towel, he knew his touch would only make things worse. Everything falling, though not quite apart.

_::::::_

Stuck in that viscous world of privacy, the bathroom vanity lights were dim because one bulb had burned out; and it was almost as if Konan had traded one of them for the other.

Trying to force these thoughts out of his mind as Nagato leaned against the tub and Konan spoke. Her voice was always the greatest tranquilizer, a silencer of the rain, to the tumult of the outside world; the only thing that gave Nagato the false illusion hope that things could somehow turn, reverse, look up. She was dangerous. It made him smile.

Of course it made Nagato smile; a smile that had become rare, for it had not been shown in some time, hidden by the serious pursed lips, straight faces, pained grimaces, contemplative frowns.

Konan commented on this.

"I haven't seen you smile in so long...it makes me happy," she said weakly, and it made his heart turn - just a simple comment but Nagato thought his heart was going to crawl out of his mouth. Konan did not know.

Stoic as he only said, "I know." Nagato knew. He knew - it was agonizing that they all knew, Yahiko had counted on him, he'd said those fateful words, gave him the open door, _**you are the bridge to our peace -**_

"What are you thinking about so intensely?" Konan asked softly as she tilted her head, and Nagato could only remember when she was little. As she asked him, What's wrong? Why are you so sad? An innocent voice that had faded with time, but wasn't she still innocent?

Remembering the times they'd played together in the snow, before they had to move on from the coming of war, before bombs had fallen and shrapnel rained down like hail from the sky. Her face, bright and impossibly sunny, wasn't fitting with the snow.

Reaching out with one weak hand, fingers too long, riddled with spiderweb veins, Nagato touched Konan's cheek and sensed her age; it gave him reassurance. Made him forget about the dream deprived.

"Just remain the same." Nagato spoke gravely; was that even his own voice, unsteady and too low? As he leaned in close and she was still, but let him - Konan let Nagato kiss her near her mouth, almost too close to her mouth, and something nearly broke but not quite. Not quite.

_::::::_

How many times had Nagato imagined it, while they were training, while they were studying together, reading books, and talking together?

How many times had Nagato pictured what it would be like to kiss Konan - not the emotion, not how it would _feel,_ but instead how it would make her feel, how her face would look, happy or sad or exhilarated or scared? How it would change him, _and_ her, make them both seem grown up and adept for the world, they were together at last because they'd kissed.

A worn-out scenario, it was almost too innocent. Nagato hated himself for it.

Now, emerging from the bathroom his hair was finally dry, Konan's words had been kept and her voice was all used up - but no she didn't look at him with hatred, at least there was no hate in her eyes when she looked at him one last time before going to her bedroom, but was there something else, a flash of guilt?

Yahiko, sitting at the kitchen card table, took no notice. Nagato was sure he hadn't noticed them come from the room -

Suddenly Yahiko looked up and stared. Nearly caught off-guard by how Yahiko's eyes seemed more unending than his own searching his, searching **him**, and Nagato felt sick enough to turn away; but his face remained blank. It was almost a betrayal.

"Going to sleep?" Yahiko asked after a moment's silence; Nagato exhaled softly.

"...Yes. I suppose so. I'm tired," he managed. Suddenly believing his own lie, for Nagato felt almost ill from walking through the sheets of rain tonight, from scaling half the city, from feeling so strangely solitary. (_As if they aren't here with you.) S_omehow all miles apart, the crack among them opening up wide its hellish mouth to reveal the growing rift, they were growing up and it was so harrowing yet completely unforeseen. It was a bitter joke, Nagato almost wanted to laugh. Bitterly.

_::::::_

At dawn the next day, the two men met in the run-down kitchen before the sun rose behind the towering thunderous clouds, when it was completely dark but not still.

No, Nagato mused, Ame, a place of strife hate disease war death, was never quite still. Never at peace, it was the eye of the storm. It was too fitting.

Both knew why they were there in the early morning hours before she was awake -_ because you have to protect her, she can't hear this._ They both knew what change had to come, sensed the change on the horizon: the time was now, had to be now, it was a feeling,** fate. **

Yahiko's eyes were demanding yet not harsh, the same old leader, he was still the same boy. Yet Nagato knew it, he could sense the change in his friend, the second friend - after Konan, but he wasn't of less importance: no, Yahiko was almost _too_ important to them both.

And there had been a change: aggressive now; still amiable, good natured, but aggressive, blunt and raw, sexual and of that powerful (destructive) high energy, he was still Yahiko, but -

"I'm enlisting new recruits. Tomorrow." Yahiko said, and took his kunai from his pocket. He tossed it in the air, caught it again and again. Nagato only watched, his eyes, two tokens of bloodshed history and the desire for immortality, following his movements.

Nagato stared, his stomach sinking. Something did not feel right. "You cannot be serious." Many of their men had already fallen. Hanzou was too powerful. It had become clear: an army of 100, 200 at most, against an infantry of a thousand that guarded the tyrant high up in his tower, ruling with a bloody fist. They'd come up with two strategies that had both failed already.

And with the restless look in Yahiko's eye - did it really mean that time was running out?

Never had Nagato understood how others could complain that there was not enough time. For so long it had felt like there was entirely _too much _of it - too many neat squares and spaces, too many numbers lined up, too many minutes ticking off into nothing.

Now Nagato almost felt it: Yahiko's anxiety. To exterminate Hanzou before it was too late because time was catching up, running out. Yahiko's argument with his own self; Konan said Nagato thought entirely too much, but Nagato noticed the many times Yahiko's mind would seem to wander, his face distant: and this had to be his thought. His deliberation.

"New recruits..." Nagato whispered quietly. "The same old kind of shinobi, then. The same old renegades of Ame, shinobi terrorized by Hanzou who seek us out?" His voice unusually flat, lacking all virtue as he spoke.

Yahiko staring, curious; but his eyes too dark, disturbingly dark. "Of course not, Nagato. Of course not, you already know better, of course you know." The kitchen faucet had steadily been dripping for the past few days; it dripped constantly, dripdripdrip, over Yahiko's voice, seeming to mock him, dripdripdripdripdrip -

As quick as lightning, no, somehow more swift, fueled by the frustrations, Yahiko was twisting the faucet, twisting it like putty moldable in his hands, unfixable. Nagato was mute. Speechless as Yahiko almost shouted, his voice was impossibly pained, too loud, Konan would awaken -

_"THIS! _This is why! I can't stand this!**_ All of this!"_** Throwing up his hands to the whole apartment, the entire city, overtaken by this never ending turmoil, this sudden desperation. "This has to end. This miserable apartment, stupid dirty dump, this stupid dump of a life." Yahiko's voice no longer desperate, only barren.

His voice cracked in his throat as Nagato spoke. "Not the same old recruits..."

Yahiko, distant, but truthful: "No...Not the same old recruits."

A flood of realization with that broken voice, the equally broken eyes - it made him almost sick, Nagato cursed his own eyes, too cognizant and he'd never wanted this.

_(Something was going to be lost.)_

"Tomorrow. We head to the wastelands. We will make one final attempt. My contact sent them out to meet us. They are true warriors, Nagato." Yahiko smiled, bittersweetly, serious, as he stared out the window with hands behind his back, numbed, they were both too similar in their detachment. "Notorious criminals of war. And...I have a plan. A better plan this time." Yahiko said, approaching Nagato; and Nagato knew it was his obligation to listen, to not turn away.

Because this was the pursuit of their unattainable hopes, the childhood lost, the broken windows glass-cut skin blood on their hands the cold hard ground the pain and the loss. It was all here, looming over them, embracing them, ever so cold.


	6. Part 6

**Title:** Phantasm**  
****Pairing:** _Yahiko_/Konan [before 'Pein']  
**Rating:** PG-16  
**Warnings: **Light sexuality  
**Summary:** Konan knew she desired this closeness, shared between them like a hidden pact. Something reassuring to her. When Yahiko kissed her, one last time, too hard for her to breathe, it was confirmed.

**Note**: Here is the highly anticipated scene from chapter 511. I apologize from lack of updates. There was a lot of drama, problems, a death in the family. I wasn't quite sure about the quality of this chapter. I feel that I wanted to pinpoint on Konan's emotions more, and her feelings about Yahiko's growing unrest and anger. I hope I conveyed it. The story, sadly, will be coming to an end soon. 2-3 more chapters, max. Updates will be more frequent. Happy belated New Year. Reviews are much appreciated, as always. This chapter is somewhat longer to compensate for my absence. Also, the song lyrics are featured on Eden of the East. It's a beautiful animation.

* * *

**Phantasm**

"We live a dying dream, if you know what I mean...It's all that I've ever known."

— _Falling Down_ by Oasis

_**Part 6:: 18 Years Old::[2]**_

Yahiko had never fully understood weakness - until he realized the truth. About everything. It was so clear, he felt stupid.

It was when he had been injured when training with the Akatsuki. It was when they still lived in the shack that Jiraiya had given them; now years old, it had grown ramshackle, dilapidated. Grown out of.

In the earliest stages of forming their soon to be infamous, _notorious_ group, a group that held the future of this world and this generation, and even the next in its grasp - Yahiko had nearly died.

Or so Konan had claimed. She had been worried he'd bleed to death, looking at him with painfully apprehensive eyes as she gently laid him down on the makeshift bed on the floor, a crude healing station. The towels and tatami mats were stained with old blood. The shuriken that had been embedded deeply into his left shoulder, his lower back, were all carefully removed by Konan, patiently through his gritty cries and clenched teeth as Yahiko endured the pain, the stitching, the bandaging.

"Never thought...you'd become some medic," Yahiko was faintly hoarse, feeling fatigued as he curiously watched Konan work, finishing the bandages on his wrist. His forehead, thoroughly bruised from a slight gash, was already wrapped up along with his torso and chest.

Strips of gauze with matted tissue and blood were pushed aside. More bandages. "Yahiko, you know I don't mind." It was Konan's way to be carefully calm, placid, still even in crisis, her hands not shaking or trembling, the only proof of her emotions in her eyes.

And at that moment, a strange feeling overwhelmed Yahiko - and maybe it was a little impulsive, too impulsive...but he wanted to prove it to her, say any thing at that moment just to convince her - Akatsuki, it was just beginning, and he wouldn't always be so prideful and self-assured that he would always get so hurt. _(And that he could make her happy again, in some way, any way.) _

"Konan," Yahiko began, before he winced as his abdominal muscles contracted painfully as he tried to get up. Konan frowned, before gently holding his lower back and lifting him to sit. Yahiko held back a cry of pain, eyes shut tight, the world dark and sprinkled with brilliant stars -

Until he opened them, regained his vision, came face to face with Konan.

It was then that Yahiko understood how he felt, how things were. And from there, he could never go back.

Was Konan the same person? Quiet and affectionate once, yet as they grew older she had changed, becoming lithe and almost graceful. Authoritative and strong; yet still kind and calm. It was all bittersweet. And how she looked at him with eyes that were nearly entrancing, embracing...

Yet Konan had never been hesitant to fight for her survival or theirs. She had done everything she could for them, faithfully stayed at his side as more than a companion, and Yahiko kept taking - and what if it all came to an end? Because she was there when no one else was and she didn't deserve this life.

It was like a debt Yahiko could never repay: just her presence, her words. And this thought would be carried with him for too long, maybe forever. But he wanted to keep her.

"Konan - " Yahiko started again, but she quieted him with her melancholy eyes, faint and timeless smile. That worn out, sympathetic look. The look he wanted more than anything, more than success, maybe Hanzou dead at his feet, even -

Kissing made him forget all of it, those sudden thoughts that sprang on him, contradictory and ridiculous thoughts that could have been true.

"Don't ever -" Konan said, in-between their kiss, "- Die, OK?"

Yahiko pulled away, breathless, still slightly numb from antiseptic. _Don't ever leave_, he wanted to say - and he realized he was selfish, loved her too much, that one day Konan would suffer for it. So he obliged.

"Don't worry. I'd never," Yahiko said, so reassuringly he nearly thought it was true.

_(A wonderful lie.)_

_::::::_

Konan awoke to the sickening sound of groaning, twisting metal in the middle of the night.

The digital clock by her bed read 2 AM. Konan wrapped the blanket around her shoulders more tightly, covering her mouth, biting at her cheek and willing it to go away, the fury and the hatred and sadness she sensed in this house. And all at once, everything was still. No longer could Konan hear Yahiko's sharp screaming, Nagato's sturdy loud replies. Only silence, which only made her heart pound with a strange apprehension and bitterness.

In the morning, she awoke to realize she'd slept far too late.

It made Konan suddenly remember being a child again, days before her mind could process the words war, manslaughter, death, starvation, famine - nothing fearsome or evil existed. When people she met would smile at her and automatically be kind. Little again, so she could sleep late into the morning before her mother would gently wake her up. She couldn't remember her mother's face, her expressions; it made bile rise in Konan's throat. She swallowed heavily. The memory made her irrationally sad, with a deep sense of longing for something she couldn't identify.

Rain slammed against the windowpanes in a violent and almost vengeful fury, reflecting their moods.

9 AM, and Konan padded barefoot through the apartment with the draft, musty smelling walls and unswept floors, feeling chilled from the silence - without warning, she was alone.

Nagato's books were not scattered across the table or by the window overlooking the city as they usually were. Instead, they were neatly stacked by the cheap bookshelf. As if they hadn't been touched. Yahiko's tools were not laid out on the counter from repair; his presence, the evidence of his _life_, didn't exist.

Her heart beat strangely, flying into her throat. Konan trailed her fingertips across the counter. Could not think anything, could not feel anything when she saw the twisted kitchen faucet, a funny looking metal knot.

Konan walked back towards the bedroom; made no sound, forgot to close the door._ (How had they become so far apart?)_

Lying back down, even despite the time. Not questioning where they'd gone. Not thinking to go after them. Too tired to interrogate, to think. To wonder. Only crawling back into the inviting blankets, the empty bed that beckoned her, hoping to lie down not to dreams, but to static. Uninterrupted darkness.

_::::::_

Amegakure's wastelands, scattered with ashes and debris, remnants and relics of storms and disaster, past bloody battles.

A vast and empty land that had once haunted them as children.

Yahiko approached them. Nagato felt a strange weight settle into his chest, lying heavily there; instinct continued to assault him, this isn't right.

Their soldiers - the members of Akatsuki, stood tall and strong, vigilant. True tools, weapons. But this wasn't correct, no - Nagato thought bitterly to himself, they were doing this for their own payoff, not for loyalty, bravery, pointless and petty labels that didn't guarantee the scarce money and protection they'd been offered. Despite the many who had fallen, brutally butchered by Hanzou's men, bleak. symbols of Hanzou themselves.

_**Akatsuki**_: a bloody dawn.

They were no longer saviors of purity, with a vision for peace - blood drenched now, their morals and ideals; but then, had they ever been pure to begin with? Nagato would like to think so.

Though at least when Yahiko spoke - recognizable as their true leader, their voice, their guide, everyone listened. Nagato could no longer understand what Yahiko once told him, in secret: you are the bridge to our peace. He'd always been somewhat grandiose. Hopeful. It stung, and Nagato could not bear being something beyond himself _(because it can't possibly be true)._

"We have a proposition - a plan. You will become a part of our victory," Yahiko spoke proudly.

The leader of the warriors stepped forth, appearing scarred and menacing, though almost weary. "Victory. How many times have I heard that - well if you're not gonna pay up front, let me tell you, our services don't come for free -"

Yahiko silenced him, shoving the edge of his blade into the soft, black earth. "We're giving you **freedom**. Reclaiming our land from Hanzou. Ending his stifling hold on Amegakure." Freedom. The constant prize man always pursued; the ultimate payoff, and to Yahiko this was enough -

The head of these criminals, _true_ criminals unlike the kind that the Akatsuki were called - former criminals of senseless raids, slaughter - simply laughed. "_Freedom_, some goddamn joke, huh. Knew I never should've paid any attention to what that guy had to say to me," the man spoke sharply and off-handedly of his contact, signaling for his band of men to leave.

Yahiko had a plan. Nagato had seen him painstakingly lay them out night after night, loss after loss. Even when they won, reclaimed some territory that Hanzou's army had taken over deep within the city. But those wins, Yahiko would say, those triumphs - they were small, meaningless, just hacking away at the outside. They needed to get in. And firepower, their strength, it wouldn't do.

"See", Yahiko had said in an excited voice that made Nagato remember their distant childhood, "We were doing it all wrong. You were always right, Nagato - I mean, all those times you said you hated fighting too, that we couldn't win if we fought. You were right." Nagato had kept those words in the back of his mind for weeks. _You were right._ They felt almost empty.

He'd proposed a treaty, one he would present to Hanzou that day - a peaceful way of ending it. Secretly Nagato knew this was almost like a defeat, a surrender, a white flag Yahiko was reluctant to give...but Nagato also had seen Yahiko's true heart. When Konan had bandaged his wounds even long ago, and he'd looked at her with a gentle softness and sort of attachment that made Nagato feel almost alone, yet surprisingly hopeful himself. Nagato knew deep inside, the truth: they were always lured and alluded by peace, the ideal of utopia. And a compromise was the only way.

"There won't be any battle. We only want you for security. Think of you as our bodyguards," Yahiko said, smirking, his boyish humor resurfacing for a moment as he threw a bag heavy with cash, which the leader easily caught. "Of course we know you want money - it's human nature. Think of it as an..._incentive_."

The leader paused, staring at the bag. He opened it, examined its contents before shaking his head, appearing satisfied, arrogant.

"You sure know how to be persuasive, huh. This sure is some _freedom_ right here," he laughed almost scornfully, as Yahiko's quiet smile fell for a moment, replaced by a distant and almost young expression. Then Yahiko quietly laughed to himself; throwing his head back slightly, staring straight into the rainy sky, face pelted with rain.

"It's the salvation of our kingdom," Yahiko said to himself, as Nagato began to explain their plan, suddenly obligated to do so by more than loyalty alone.

_::::::_

The second time Konan awoke, she felt dull and lonely and the rain had only grown harder.

What time was it? Konan was unsure. A heaviness lingered in her heart. She'd slept restlessly, suddenly extremely tired. She had never told Yahiko, despite their closeness - the close contact that had bound them together invisibly, through his lingering touch - that oftentimes, she'd grown weary and tired of battle. Almost three years of her life had been filled with an escalating turbulence.

A turbulence not only from the battle, the endless acts of bloodshed, but of feeling as well.

Konan could remember the time that Yahiko had first truly touched her; the day they had first done something so choppy and raw and complete as sex. Her head had spun, and her feet had felt like they would melt straight through the floor. When he'd finished, Yahiko gently set her back down, and Konan couldn't help but notice his arms were shaking. Her body, veins, skin still tingled with pleasure, and -

_Love_, because she looked into Yahiko's face and what she saw was no hatred for anyone, or a desire to kill their adversary, no pent up need for destruction, but her own heart reflected back. Young and emotional feeling like they were children again, back on their own and bound by juvenile affection.

How long had it been since he'd touched her?

Konan slowly arose. Walked to her closet. Noticed the time. (Evening.) Winds whipping and howling violently outside the apartment. Slipping on her cloak. Slowly zipping the zipper, hiding her casual clothing of normal women. It wrapped her in the violence she'd witnessed.

Clutching the high neck's cloth to her mouth. Blunt nails digging into her palms, a _fury_ welling within -

Screaming into the material, bloodily, brokenly - bleary anger and confusion, why had they left and why was Yahiko so changed? she loved them both, and - how would it end, WHY THEM, why NOW, it wasn't fair it was never...

Konan leaned against the closet, eyes shut. A weakness was creeping up on her that she'd never allowed herself to feel: exhaustion, a desire for peace. It would always overwhelm her, that pointless and grandiose fantasy of a normal life, where Nagato's rinnegan did not exist, she would know she had loved them both enough, and Yahiko would feel -

She didn't comprehend it at first. The sounds.

The sudden loud shattering sounds of the window panes imploding. A blunt crash, splintered cheap wood and the lock had been broken, the door kicked down. Crunching of footsteps on broken glass. Intruders in the living room. The first thought: they had to be with Hanzou. Akatsuki, the soon to be saviors, soon to be kings, notorious in their acts of terrorism against their leader and his army - and _they'd finally come_ _(but why?) _All erratic feeling and confusion was replaced by this calm and unsettling mantra.

It became painfully clear. Senses heightened by defense and adrenaline. Running from the bedroom to her outside balcony, their footsteps close behind. Konan could sense their chakra but she was ready for them, hadtobeready -

Then, a whirlwind of butterflies, masquerading as beauty, deadly as the edge of the blade, encasing her. Encasing them, and the present was a carousel of dancing and spinning turbulence, and the future wasn't clear. _(But I don't care if I die, she thinks, Because at least they aren't here with me.)_


End file.
